In my last post I told you about great gluten free, kosher for Passover noodles and I promised you a recipe for noodle kugel (noodle pudding), so here it is.

In the olden days I used to make a spectacular noodle pudding with sour cream and cottage cheese and pineapple (although the pineapple had to be omitted a long long time ago when I became violently allergic to it). So, I was a little worried about how a non-dairy, gluten free kugel would come out. The answer is GOOD – really good.

I suspect my family will miss my matzoh kugel this year, but honestly the gluten free matzoh – even though it tastes quite good – just disintegrates and turns to mush when I add the broth to the veges and matzoh. So I hope they will forgive me or even better learn to love this noodle pudding instead. Oh yes, it freezes (which is why I could make it today and plan to serve it at seder) well; just reheat before serving.Continue reading Gluten-free Dairy-free Sweet Noodle Pudding (Kugel) for Passover→

It’s no secret that I love and miss crackers. After nine months of paleo, I have finally created really good paleo crackers; the good news is since grains and beans are no-nos on paleo, these are also kosher for Passover. In fact, as Passover approaches, it occurs to me that I don’t have to do anything different from my usual foods to be on board for Passover – how easy is that?

But Paleo Dog Biscuits? No, I haven’t gone off the deep end…Paleo Dog was not my idea at all. Bella has had several bouts with ear problems and her vet suggested it may be due to allergies and the best thing I can do for her is remove grain, beef, and poultry from her diet. This leaves me with no treats for her. The good news is – she loves these paleo crackers.

It’s Purim so it’s Hamantashen Time (to learn more see the original hamantashen post). Last year’s were really good but the dough did have a hint of coconut (not a bad thing) and I wondered if I could make them with a more neutral flavored fat. I recently purchased organic shortening; I practically never use shortening in my cooking but I have fond memories of my friend Suzy’s mom, Rose, baking brownies with shortening and frying French fries in it. Both tasted great.

So, this year I made my hamantashen dough using the shortening. It blended into the other ingredients much better than the coconut oil had…if you look closely at the old photos you’ll see little white spots in the dough – that’s the unblended coconut oil. This dough has none of that.

However, the dough came out much softer than the one made with coconut oil.

In practical terms that means when you divide the dough in half and pat it into a disk, you have to cover the dough with a second piece of wax paper and pat the wax paper to make the disk, then refrigerate at least 1 hour until dough firms up.

To roll the dough: dust the disk with oat flour then spread it all over; place between 2 pieces of wax paper and roll it out.

And because the dough is soft, after you’ve cut out the circles; move them from the wax paper to the baking sheet using a spatula and use the spatula to help lift the sides to make the triangle shapes

The end result was very very good and worth the extra effort.

These are mini hamantashen, you can use a bigger biscuit cutter to make normal sized cookies, you’ll just end up with fewer.

I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I know I don’t usually post recipes on Fridays, but this is the day after Thanksgiving and it would be cruel not to give you at least one recipe for that mound of turkey currently in your refrigerator. Here are two ideas – Turkey Hash (which I published right after I started this blog), and today’s recipe: Turkey Pot Pie.

And now for dessert: Pumpkin Pie! Okay, let’s be honest here. My original intention was to make pumpkin pie mini-tarts. They baked well, however, they refused to come out of the muffin tins. Happily I only made a test batch so I could make a quick about face and bake the rest as a traditional pie. On the other hand…I forgot to take photos of the pie crust and filling the pie crust – so the photos are of the mini-tarts; so just imagine doing the same thing in a 9-inch pie pan (but you’ll be bringing the crust up the sides of the pan). Now back to the stove for me.

Happy New Year. Sorry I was too busy with the holidays to post last week but I hope today’s post will make you so hungry you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

Last week’s fruit from the CSA was pears. I ate a few and gave away more but still was left with four, by now overly ripe, pears. So here is my dessert of the week. They’re easy to prepare and quite yummy and would also be great served with vanilla ice cream (if you can have it) or coconut sorbet.Continue reading Maple Roasted Pear Halves→

My friend Natalie had a birthday this week and when we were on the phone I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and her reply was “crepes or croissants.” Croissants are way too complicated but I’d be glad to make a crepe recipe for her – and for YOU. So Happy Birthday Natalie – I hope you love these.

Now about Palacsinta (we pronounce then palachinkin), as you may have figured out from previous posts, my background is Hungarian. On weekends when my grandmother would come to visit, Sunday mornings she would make Palacsinta. She would stand at the stove using 3 small skillets at a time turning out palachinkin as fast as a machine – but never could she keep up with our almost super human ability to pack them away. After a while she would give up and add a little flour to the remaining batter, than add cut up apples or bananas and make what she called fritters but in reality was more of a German apple (or banana) pancake. I don’t think Grandma actually ever got to eat any of it – unless she snuck (is that a word?) one or two while she was at the stove – cause she surely never sat down at the table. She was a great lady (and fabulous cook), my Grandma.

As you can see from the photos there are 2 ways of making crepes – logs or chevrons. The logs are the Hungarian presentation, the chevrons which are French (though they do logs as well) are easier to handle.

Do you love Wheat Thins®? Do you miss Wheat Thins®? As a well known cracker-aholic, switching to gluten-free crackers was probably even harder for me than giving up bread (because with the exception of my gluten-free cornbread, I have yet to find a bread I like). I buy every gluten-free cracker that comes out and none of them have the right consistency for me. Some are certainly fine, but delicious like Wheat Thins®? Not. These crackers are remarkably easy to make and are exactly what I was hoping for when I started working on the recipe.

As written, the recipe makes savory, crispy crackers with just a hint of sweetness and no starchiness at all. You can easily alter the recipe to your tastes: low sodium? leave out the salt. Don’t have zatar aka za’atar? Use poultry seasoning or any herbs you like – or none at all for a plain cracker. Want a neutral tasting cracker? leave out the garlic powder and herbs. Don’t like seeds? omit the egg and toppings. I could go on forever with the possibilities. You can also vary the shapes, once you’ve rolled out the dough, you can cut them into assorted shapes using cookie cutters or you can make them into larger crackers by just cutting them into rectangles or you can cut the rectangles into squares or diamonds. I’ve also thought about, but have yet to try, rolling the dough into 1 1/2-inch balls and flattening them in a tortilla press, then cutting the resulting circle into wedges. If you try that, let me know how it works : )Continue reading Best Ever Gluten-free Dairy-free Crackers (not Paleo)→

Tomorrow’s my birthday and I wanted a celebratory dessert. I know better than to expect or even hope there will be anything on the menu of the restaurant we are going to that I can eat other than sorbet, so I’ve baked my own birthday dessert. Basically a galette is a free-form pie. It’s really not hard to make and the result is delicious. Although I made an apple galette this time, I am also gearing up to try a plum/nectarine and a multi-berry one too. Keep tuned for the results of the other ones.Continue reading Gluten-free Dairy-free Apple Galette (not Paleo)→

Sometimes I just really want bread. I know there are several very good gluten-free breads, but for me they all have a strange starchy mouth-feel and a slight off taste. This cornbread suffers none of those problems. It is light and moist and has just the right amount of sweetness (unless you like cornbread this is not sweet)…and did I mention it’s really easy to make? I would imagine you can use this recipe for corn muffins, but I haven’t tried them yet. I was so excited with the yummy result of this recipe I wanted to post it “hot out of the oven” – almost literally.

Now that I have this fabulous cornbread recipe, you can count on seeing a more savory variation soon or maybe even a bread stuffing. In the meantime I am going to bed with a big smile on my face knowing that I’m going to have delicious cornbread for breakfast. Hope you try this one.

Thanksgiving 2014 Update: I loved this bread so I made it for Thanksgiving, but I was concerned that it was a little too crumbly. So I added one extra egg and it turned out great – it held together beautifully when sliced – so if you like your cornbread a little drier and crumbly, use 2 eggs. If you want it to be a little springier and easier to plate, use 3 eggs. Also: I baked it in a 9 x 9-inch pan so I cut it into about 24 pieces and got more servings but they were a little thinner than the photo above (see photo below) AND I used cashew milk and it was great.